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Welcome to Youstice Blog!

We will use this space to share with you the latest developments on what we do at Youstice. We will also invite various experts to speak their mind about a number of topics, such as online dispute resolution, as well as the latest trends in issue management, e-commerce and technology, among others.

Think of the business transaction between you and your customer as you would of ordinary human relationship. Sure, you attracted him or her with your shiny new product, but once the novelty wears off, what's stopping him from moving on to the next new thing? The answer is simple - the human contact.

Capacity for creating a connection between your e-business and your customers is the defining atribute of establishing a positive emotional experience. According to research, customer is bound to remember two moments of the transaction - the emotional high point (e.g. making the purchase of desired item or any issue experienced) and the last point of communication.

Now, both of these can be controlled by you, if you provide your staff with these three pillars of customer service that will leave your clients positively engaged:

1. Understanding of the situation

A lot can go wrong with online shopping. Paywall may not be operational, the layout of website might be confusing for some of your customers, shipments can be late, orders might get lost... Possibilities for human or technical error are pretty much limitless.

Now, imagine your client realising something has gone wrong - his effort, time and money seemingly wasted. Your staff has to be prepared for emotional and skewed description of the issue.

First of all, know your processes – ordering, delivery – so you could retrace every step of the way between customer and his order. Secondly, use polite but precise questions to determine where did the mistake occur and what can be done to correct it. Don’t be afraid to ask for confirmation and to feel out what would be preferred solution for customer. Remember, the damage was already done – no need to make it worse by pretending you are omniscient.

2. Emotional empathy

As mentioned, it's very possible your customer will be in a bad place, emotionally speaking. Fixing the issue is for sure something to be appreciated, but research indicates that customers will remain with the e-shop even despite not correcting the mistake if they feel they have been taken care of.

Main rule of thumb: listen with understanding, comment with sympathy and be straight-forward with facts. If you don’t know something, admit it and reassure your client that you will inquire further. If you are aware of something that might not make your customer happy (for example, that the delivery will be extremely late) but it will lift the vail of uncertainty, don’t withhold such information.

One last thing – when dealing with time-consuming complaint, follow the rule of FAST: Friendly to customers, Accurate during transactions, Sympathetic to customers' emotions about waiting and Thankful for customers' time and patronage. Customers often report shorter perceived waiting time when your staff follows the FAST.

3. Channel of effective communication

Growth of the smartphone and tablet industry is leading to huge boom of online shopping. This also means that your customers might be interested in faster and more efficient communication channels than traditional phone or e-mail.

When looking at the state-of-the-art customer service online communication tools, you can either go with dynamic online chat and ticketing system (e.g. LiveAgent) or complaint management platform (e.g. Youstice).

Online chats are simple in their premise of direct textual communication with low threshold for user penetration, while complaint management platform not only provides structured dialogue with easy-to-understand icons between retailer and customer, but also gives you customisable dashboard with statistics on all the complaints in your e-shop.

About the author

Martin is responsible for managing Operations and Back Office at Youstice. Apart from various specializations and hobbies, he has a vast experience in customer care management and delivering best customer experience, which he gained at his previous positions at one of the Europe's leading outsourcing specialists. Martin is also closely connected with the ever-changing world of social media and product development.